Osho - The Long, the Short and the All - Chapter 3 - Religion and Education: Part One

This is a reprint of Will's story from January 2011. I think it is pertinent and interesting in view of the election of the new pope. I have broken it up into shorter parts to allow for more intimate understandings of the concepts presented herein.

Namaste'

Desert Gypsy

Osho

The Long, the Short and the All

Chapter 3 - Religion and Education

WHAT IS THE AIM OF RELIGION? It is to awaken the slumbering superman in the ordinary man. This and this alone is religion's goal.

YOU ASK FOR PROOF OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD? Isn't the existence of consciousness sufficient proof? Doesn't a drop of water prove there is an ocean?

AT DAWN I watched the sparkling drops of dew gently and lovingly settling on the petals of the flowers. They made not a sound. When one's heart is ready God also descends like the tiny drops of dew. You have no inkling of his coming until he manifests himself before you.

IF YOU WISH TO KNOW GOD the path is silence. Whatsoever is said about God becomes untrue because it has been said in the first place.

TO WHICH RELIGION DO I BELONG? To none. Only in the sense of virtue, piety, justice, fairness, simplicity and the like qualities has religion any real existence, but in so-called religious cults and sects it does not exist at all. And it is the very existence of these cults and sects that have obstructed the manifestation of real religion in the world. To give birth to a true religious spirit all cults must disappear. That is why I do not belong to any particular religion, to any sect or cult.

The man who aspires to real virtue need not belong to any religion. The organized religions really only exist to encourage the evil that lives and flourishes in the wake of religion. Evil may have some cause for anxiety when it encounters virtue, but the existence of today's religions must make it positively jubilant. I do not belong to any religion because I have no wish to join Satan's party.

I have heard that Satan and his disciples had for some time been keeping their eyes on a man who was engaged in the quest for truth. They were understandably anxious and had been watching him closely. One morning, however, the disciples rushed to Satan to inform him that the man had attained truth. They were quite upset.

Satan consoled them, saying, "Don't worry. Just wait until this news spreads from city to city; People will flock to this man; they will take the truth he has attained and frame it in codes and creeds, and then they will organize themselves into a sect; You have nothing to worry about at all."

RELIGION IS A PATH. No path can be traveled just by knowing about it. You can only travel a path by walking it.

THE GREATEST RESPECT a man can show religion is to live it, to use it. The man who only talks about it but does not live it betrays his non-belief in his own words and thoughts.

A RELIGIOUS LIFE IS NOT AN IMPRACTICAL ONE. Nor is a virtuous life.

The truth of religion can only be known to the degree it is lived. Unless it is lived it cannot be known. Living it is knowing it. To those who imagine they can know religion without living it, a religious life may appear impractical, but unless they live it they will never be able to understand it.

When a man is walking in the darkness the lamp be carries only lights a few feet in front of him. Only as he walks along is the path ahead of him illumined. The path of religion is the same. But if the man with the lamp stops and says to himself, "This is such a tiny limp. Its light is so weak, the way is so long and the night is so dark," is it any wonder it seems impractical to him to continue on his way by the light of his lamp?

Part two tomorrow or read the post in its entirety by clicking here.